Yet, because of their accessible pop sound and eminently hummable melodies, the Dummies are sufficiently down-to-earth to have won a broad audience. Besides performing some of its best-known songs, the band is patiently fielding questions posed by phone, fax, e-mail and a small audience. [7], While studying in Winnipeg in the late 1980s, Reid joined a band "Brad Roberts and the St.James Rhythm Pigs" who were playing in local taverns. Others are more predictable, dwelling on the nature of his bass-baritone voice. Some of the queries are frivolous, dealing with his favorite shampoo and style of underwear. "He's a legitimate snob," says Reid, adding quickly, "Oh, God, don't quote me or he'll kill me.
In 1989, they landed their own gig at the festival. Brad, however, is out in the hallway, talking about illness, old age, death - the usual stuff. If that sounds dry and dispassionate, well, that's Roberts. "It's true that I've written about growing old, getting sick and dying," he says, coughing for a moment, as if on cue.
Close • Posted by 4 minutes ago. Reflecting his high-brow interests, the album also mentions T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, cubists and dadaists. "If people find him pompous, it's because they're intimidated by his choice of language. But he was lucky enough to have understanding parents who supported his non-jock interests, including music. In 1989, they landed their own gig at the festival. Ellen Lorraine Reid (born 14 July 1966)[1] is a Canadian musician. The group's folky 1991 debut album, The Ghosts That Haunt Me, which spawned the surprise hit Superman's Song, sold an astonishing 400,000 copies in Canada alone. As for Roberts, he is living in a sublet in New York City's East Village, writing songs for the next Dummies album.
He was this early 20th-century guy who had all these convoluted theories of how to paint." This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on March 27, 1995. [1][10][11] and toured in support of the album in early 2002.[12]. That ensured him creative control and a healthy royalty rate. In 2004 she was also involved in the recording of the Dummies' Songs of the Unforgiven album. He uses the word 'juxtaposed' in a sentence, which you'd maybe hear in an art-theory class or something. Things don't just pour out of me, due to some inspirational muse. ", Reid, a classically trained pianist who has known Roberts since their days at the University of Winnipeg, says that irony underscores everything he does.
The next month, Dummies manager Jeff Rogers landed the group a prestigious date on Saturday Night Live.
Fame has meant that in other urban centres, including his home town, he must now wear disguises to avoid being pestered by fans. They also got the attention of Richard Flohil, a Toronto music publicist who sang the group's praises to anyone who would listen. That breakthrough earned the group nominations for three U.S. Grammy Awards, including best new artist.
We want to hear from you! "I'm actually a pretty happy guy," he continues. Roberts's speaking voice - like his singing one - is a resonant baritone that seems entirely unsuited to his slight frame and blithe manner.
I mean, he legitimately likes that stuff as opposed to people who pretend."
But his English professor, Judith Kearns, also remembers a self-deprecating wit.
I was shocked and felt crazy because I remember their whole shtick was his crazy deep voice and dwarfism. ", Back in the MuchMusic corridor, Roberts is dissecting the critical backlash that greeted God Shuffled His Feet in Canada, when he abruptly stops and edits himself - "Let me back up, because that's not going to make a good sentence, grammatically or structurally." "I'm fairly attentive to any symptoms that may be cropping up," he says, adding that he takes as many as three ventilators with different medications on tour.
The most provocative moment comes when Roberts, who has an honors degree in English and philosophy, is asked whether his academic background has influenced his songwriting. In January, 1994, MTV, which had shunned the video for Superman's Song, put Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm into heavy rotation. Partner content is not updated. And perhaps only a Canadian could have written a ballad like Superman's Song, which whimsically mourns the loss of a socially committed superhero with a mild-mannered alter ego. With an analytical mind as cold as a Winnipeg winter, he is, as he acknowledges himself, an "icy rationalist."
"Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" is a song by the Canadian folk rock group Crash Test Dummies.It was released in 1993 as the lead single from their second album, God Shuffled His Feet. I usually write a bunch of crap and then edit it.
The hyperactive brain behind the Dummies clearly belongs to Roberts, who writes almost all the group's material. Snob or not, the man whom the British music magazine Vox called "Professor of Irony at the School of Postmodernism" is clearly an unconventional pop star. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. With his earnings from The Ghosts That Haunt Me, Roberts was then able to buy himself a three-storey house in Winnipeg, equip it with a 24-track recording studio and begin work on a second album. [1], In 2001, Reid released a solo album, Cinderellen.
And next week, the Dummies will cap a triumphant 18 months when they perform at Canada's Juno Awards, where they are up for best single, best group and entertainer of the year.
I have a very methodical approach to writing. She mainly played piano and sang backup vocals behind lead singer Brad Roberts. But he's not being pretentious; that's just the way he talks. Ace of Base, All-4-One, Coolio, Lisa Loeb, The Cranberries.
The audience was an eclectic mix of grunge kids and boomers with their preadolescent offspring. Oblivious to the hallway distractions - at one point a gawking group of high-school students passes by - Roberts is completely focused as he talks about the unusual subject matter of his songs.
Ultimately, what saves Roberts from sounding ponderous in his songs is his curative use of humor. At the end of an exhausting 18 months of touring, the Dummies performed one final, "all-ages" concert at Toronto's Warehouse club in January.
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